Box (company)
Box, Inc. (formerly Box.net), is an American internet company based in Redwood City, California. The company focuses on cloud content management and file sharing service for businesses. Official clients and apps are available for Windows, macOS, and several mobile platforms. Box was founded in 2005.
Type of site | Content management and file sharing |
---|---|
Traded as | NYSE: BOX |
Headquarters | Redwood City, California, U.S. |
Created by | Aaron Levie Dylan Smith |
Key people | Aaron Levie (Chairman and CEO) Stephanie Carullo (COO) Dylan Smith (CFO) |
Industry | Cloud storage, File hosting |
Employees | 1850 (as of 2017)[1] |
URL | www |
Alexa rank | |
Launched | 2005[3][4] (as Box.net) Mercer Island, Washington, U.S. |
History
Box was originally developed as a college project of Aaron Levie while he was a student of the University of Southern California in 2004. Levie left school to run the company full-time in 2005.[5] Levie became CEO, while his childhood friend Dylan Smith became CFO.
In October 2009, Box made its first acquisition, buying Increo Solutions for its document collaboration and preview technology.[6]
In July 2012, Box secured $125 million in a funding round led by growth equity firm General Atlantic, joined by investors Bessemer Venture Partners, DFJ Growth, New Enterprise Associates, Sapphire Ventures (formerly SAP Ventures), Scale Venture Partners, and Social + Capital Partnership.[7][8]
In December 2013, eight investors participated in a $100 million series F funding round. Investors included Coatue Management, DFJ Growth, Itochu Technology Ventures, Macnica Networks Corp., Mitsui & Co, Telefónica Digital, Telstra, and Telstra Ventures.[9]
In July 2014, Box received $150 million from Coatue Management and TPG Capital in a series G funding round.[10]
In November 2014, Box acquired two-man medical-imaging software startup MedXT for $3.84 million.[11]
On January 23, 2015 Box held its initial public offering on the NYSE. The IPO price was $14.00. It opened at $20.20 and closed at $23.23. The IPO raised $175 million and established a market capitalization of about $1.6 billion.[12]
In February 2015, Box acquired the company Airpost. Airpost is a cloud management service.[13]
In January 2016, some Box employees moved into their new headquarters in downtown Redwood City, California.[14]
Business model
Box is a cloud computing business which provides file sharing, collaborating, and other tools for working with files that are uploaded to its servers. Users can determine how their content can be shared with other users.[15] Users may invite others to view and/or edit an account's shared files, upload documents and photos to a shared files folder (and thus share those documents outside Box), and give other users rights to view shared files.[16]
Box offers three account types: Enterprise, Business and Personal.[17] There are official clients offered for Windows and macOS, but not for Linux. A mobile version of the service is available for Android, BlackBerry 10, iOS, WebOS, and Windows Phone devices.[18]
Box's enterprise clients include IBM,[19] GE,[20] Schneider Electric,[21] and Procter & Gamble.[22]
In December 2007 the company announced OpenBox 2, which allows developers to create services that interact with files on both Box.com and competing web-based applications and services. The application programming interface is implemented over conventional XML.[23]
Events
BoxWorks
BoxWorks is an annual conference hosted by Box featuring presentations, feature announcements and working sessions to assist users.[24]
See also
- Cloud collaboration
- Cloud storage
- Comparison of file hosting services
- Comparison of file synchronization software
- Comparison of online backup services
- Document collaboration
- File sharing
- Project management software
- Software as a service
- Amazon Web Services
- CloudApp
- Dropbox
- Evernote
- Monosnap
- Oracle Cloud
- iCloud Drive
- Adobe Creative Cloud
References
- Freytas-tamura, Kimiko De (March 31, 2013). "Box, a Data Storage Company, Prepares to Expand in Europe" – via NYTimes.com.
- "box.com Competitive Analysis, Marketing Mix and Traffic - Alexa". www.alexa.com. Retrieved October 1, 2019.
- Rachel King (March 6, 2014). "How Aaron Levie and his childhood friends built Box into a $2 billion business,Box V4, without stabbing each other in the back". TechRepublic. Retrieved December 1, 2016.
Development for Box, then Box.net, started at the end of 2004, but really got off the ground and went online in 2005 during their second years of college.
- Aaron Levie (September 14, 2011). "Commentary: Why we had to leave Seattle to build Box.net". GeekWire. Retrieved December 1, 2016.
Box – which now competes with Redmond's very own Microsoft SharePoint – had been started in early '05 from college dorm rooms in California and North Carolina.
- "'I was having nightmares for a few weeks': Box CEO Aaron Levie reveals how hard it was to build a $2.5 billion business and take it public by age 29". Business Insider. Retrieved September 21, 2017.
- Arrington, Michael. "Box.net Acquires Increo Solutions To Expand Document Collaboration And Sharing". TechCrunch. Retrieved October 2, 2016.
- Ha, Anthony. "Box Raises $125M To Target Global Growth And Large Enterprises, Round Led By General Atlantic". TechCrunch. Retrieved December 16, 2015.
- "Box Announces $125 Million Investment to Fuel Enterprise Growth". General Atlantic website. Archived from the original on September 2, 2017. Retrieved December 16, 2015.
- Darrow, Barb. "Yowza: Box touts $100M investment to fund global land grab". Gigaom. Retrieved December 16, 2015.
- Wilhelm, Alex. "Box Picks Up $150M More As It Waits For Favorable IPO Winds". TechCrunch. Retrieved December 16, 2015.
- By Jordan Novet, VentureBeat. "Box paid out $3.8M in stock to buy MedXT." November 17, 2014. November 17, 2014.
- Matt Egan, CNN Money. "Box jumps 66% in first big IPO of 2015."
- "Box Acquires Cloud Management Startup Airpost – TechCrunch". techcrunch.com. Retrieved April 19, 2018.
- "Redwood City Welcomes First Wave of Box Employees – RealSmart Group". realsmartgroup.com. Archived from the original on May 18, 2017. Retrieved March 28, 2017.
- "Box Privacy Policy". box.com.
- "Privacy Policy". Box. June 13, 2012. Retrieved June 14, 2013.
- "Select a Plan". Box. Retrieved June 14, 2013.
- "Box Mobile Access". Box.com. Retrieved June 27, 2013.
- "IBM and Box Forge Global Partnership to Transform Work in the Cloud".
- Ron Miller. "Box Scores Huge Win With GE". TechCrunch. AOL.
- "Consumer Technology". CIO.
- "How P&G Promotes Box File Sharing". InformationWeek.
- "Box Platform Developer Documentation / Welcome to the Box Platform". Developers.box.net. Archived from the original on June 22, 2013. Retrieved June 27, 2013.
- "What to expect from BoxWorks 2017". Cloud Pro. Retrieved June 7, 2018.